When it comes to online retail, a successful operation is all about adapting to trends. Platforms, purchasing habits, customer engagement – all of these different elements are evolving rapidly, and being able to cater to these demographics effectively and quickly is crucial.

And the better the customer experience is, the more likely they are to come back.

In this vein, having a smooth mobile checkout is integral for your business. As trends demonstrate, the future of retail is in mobile.

A 2018 report states that 79% of smartphone users have made a purchase using their mobile device in the last 6 months…and that number is poised to grow.

So how do you capitalize on this emerging market? And how do you ensure a smooth checkout process each time?

Here are some elements that every checkout experience should have for some food for thought. Use these as a mark against your own checkout process and see how you stack up and ways you can improve the customer journey for your operation.

1) Allow for guest checkout

The main thing to remember about mobile checkout is that it’s all about convenience and speed, rather than cross-selling or adding bells and whistles. You want customers to move through the forms easily, fill out their information and most importantly, stay on the checkout page. You don’t want them to navigate away or frustrate them.

So instead of coaxing them to make an account before purchasing, enable guest checkout. You can leave breadcrumbs for encouragement such as “Make an account to check out faster next time,” but otherwise, checking out as guests enables them to purchase faster.

2) Reinforce security

People are always nervous about putting in their card details and it can be especially so for mobile users since they are not always able to see each element of the page. There are some easy ways to alleviate this:

• Have security certificates on top of the checkout page, or visible in a corner somewhere
• Offer secure and alternative payment options such as Paypal

Features such as secure carts that can help push your conversion rate over, especially with first-time customers.

By offering secure payment alternatives such as Paypal and other payment gateways, users can feel safe knowing they can make purchases without their information being stolen.

3) Focus on the tiny UX/UI details

User experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design are important in designing a checkout experience.

There are a lot of different elements that go into a good checkout page, such as:

• wide text boxes to let people easily tap into each one without pressing the wrong one
• CTA (call-to-action) buttons to allow users to confirm their payment such as ‘pay now’ or ‘buy now’
• if it is a multi-page checkout, a progress indicator to show customers how many more pages they need to go through
• wide spaces to ease the experience for thumbs of all sizes

These are just a few but it is a starting point for constructing a checkout that adheres to best practices in user experience.

The best way to get through these details? Test out your checkout pages initially and periodically and time how long it takes you to get through.

Additionally, have other trusted people (both in the business and out) use the checkout pages too and note their feedback.

It helps to have a mix of different people try out the pages to understand what would keep them from finishing checkout and what details you need to add to make it as smooth as possible.

4) Continuously monitor the process

Mobile checkouts are great and convenient, but they do need to be monitored to ensure customers are having a smooth experience.

With most retail platforms, that kind of tracking between desktop and mobile customers can be difficult.

Instead of trying to monitor two different processes and doing manual reconciliation efforts, think about ways to streamline that process.

Mobile checkouts allow for a lot of your processes to be streamlined, as long as you have the right tools in place.

Use your current tools and work with your web developers to see what other measures can be taken so you can have complete oversight on the transactions taking place and solve problems for customers quickly.

These are just some elements to consider when creating and maintaining a mobile checkout experience.

With the right tools and platform in place, having a mobile checkout can boost your engagement and conversion rate while ensuring that customers are getting the best possible experience when engaging with your brand.

To ensure that this is implemented smoothly, work with experts in the field that can help you navigate through these challenges and create a user experience for mobile checkout that keeps your customers happy. To learn more, please contact us.